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Wednesday, 10 June 2015

The Revolutions of Assassin's Creed

Like thousands of others, I
watched the trailer for the new Assassin’s Creed game Syndicate soon after it
was made public. We now finally have a
Victorian Assassin, well two actually, the Frye twins Jacob and Evie. For those too involved in the spirit of the
trailer here is Jacob’s introduction to the game:

It’s a bloody marvellous time to
be alive, an age of invention, so many clever blokes dreaming up impossible
machines sorting away more gold than Queen Victoria herself. But none of those shillings ever makes it
into the pockets of the poor devils whose blood is spilt building this glorious
empire. The working class sleeping walks
through life unaware of the machine that drives them. Let's wake them up then,
shall we?

At first I thought he might be referring
to the Chartist Movement, a working-class movement for political reform in
Britain which existed from 1838 to 1858, but the game is set in 1868. So it is a bit late. One thing for certain is the talk of
revolution, something that is quickly becoming a common feature in advertising
the Assassin’s Creed games. To understand the scope of what I
am referring to, here are the trailers.

Rise Trailer

Liberation

Defy Trailer

Freedom Cry

Syndicate

The common theme is revolution
and fighting for the people, the powerless against the powerful. I get excited at the thought of revolution,
like at the end of Les Miserable standing on the barricade. Perhaps that is part of the reason I get
excited about Assassin’s Creed. There’s this vicarious involvement that video
games allow. You can “be” the character leading his band of brothers against
tyranny. I assume that like me others
get so pumped-up being this person and in this world that you want to go out
into the real world and do something with all that energy only to step through
your front door and find yourself sorely
disappointed by the real world.

Revolution is literally in the
DNA of Assassin’s Creed. In the Western
storytelling tradition, Assassin’s Creed traces its origins to the historical
Romances of Sir Walter Scott, particular another hooded member of a rag-tag
brotherhood of outsiders fighting for the people and against the injustices of
the rich and powerful. Of course I am
referring to Robin Hood.

As mentioned in previous
articles, modern Middle-Eastern scholars are swaying towards the notion that
the origin of the word assassin is asasiyun,
meaning "those faithful to the foundation", however the old belief
that the word is derived from hashishin is still held by the general public. The word hashashin means hashish user, but the
connotation is an outcast or outsider. This is the interpretation used by Ra's
al ghul in the television series Arrow when he tells Oliver Queen that the word
assassin referred to people outside of society.
This also connects back to Robin Hood.
The term outlaw originally referred to someone punished for a crime by
being placed outside of the protection of the law – literally an out-law. So in theory, someone could legally murder an
outlaw and it not be considered a crime.
Outlaw, outcast, or hashishin, it’s all the same thing.

The Assassin’s Creed series never
provides their definitive etymology, but it's safe to say the outcast theory
plays a part. The Assassins are often cast as outside of society due to the
secret knowledge they possess and being aligned with the poor, simple, every
day folk against the powers that be as represented by the Templars. This fits Assassin’s Creed's Romantic Robin
Hood heritage of the plucky outsiders -- or outlaws if you please -- fighting
the evil rich people.

This Robin Hood trope of the plucky, heroic revolutionaries
fighting for the freedom of the common man against the injustices of an evil
government, corporation, or, in the case of Assassin's Creed, a powerful secret society pulling the strings behind the scenes, is one
of the most common in modern narrative
fiction. It’s right up there with the boy meets girl trope found in
almost every rom-com.

I’m not the only one who feels
this trope. Revolution sells. Advertisers use revolution to promote their
products. Only today I walked past a shoe store with a poster in the window
asking, "What do you stand for?"
Well, apparently if you wear these shoes you can feel like a rebel
standing for your principles fighting the system and “the man”. But what exactly is “the system” and who is
the man?

The System

Understanding the so-called
system begins with recognising the human condition. All living organisms must
produce to survive. Production is the result of the combination of time,
energy, skill, and will.A tiger is engaging
his production when hunting and a gazelle when it's grazing. For humans,
production is more complicated. We require food and also shelter and clothing
to survive. This need is the foundation of all human society and production,
the application of human time, energy, skill, and will is the means to this
end. The result of human production is the entirety of the man-made Artificial
Reality in which we reside.

Human production is possibly the
most powerful resource on the planet. It has the power to change reality
itself. As with any resource, especially one this powerful, people wish to
harness it for their own purposes and to manage it. Others fear how it is used,
so they attempt to control how individuals and groups of individuals use their
production. In response, others resist these attempts by others to own, manage,
or control their production.

Every human being is born with
time, energy, will, and the capacity to develop skills. To be free is to own
your production. To be unfree, to be a slave, is to have another claim
ownership of your production -- your time, energy, skill, and will.

But freedom is nothing without
the power to act on that freedom. Power is the means by which we work our will
in the world, to exercise our freedom, so there is no point to freedom without
the means to act on that freedom?
According to this theory, the more power you have the freer you are.

Of all the powers that be, the
most versatile and reliable is money. Suppose you have a craving for a double
shot latte. You have the freedom to get it but do you have the power to get
it? What means must be employed? Do you have a car or bus fare to get to
Starbucks or can you walk? Once you get there do you have the money to buy it
or can you charm someone to buy it for you? Maybe you have a friend working
there who can give you one for free. For
something as simple as getting a cup of coffee we must employ the range of powers
at our disposal, most of which we take for granted. Of all these forms of power
the most reliable is cold hard cash.

Money is power and the more power
you have the more means at your disposal to exercise your will in the world --
your freedom. So how do we get money?
Ironically, we get money by selling our freedom.

We trade our production (our
freedom) to another person in exchange for money, a symbolic representation of
production. With money, we do not have to trade our production to buy milk.
Imagine if we had to do chores at the local shop to make purchases.

So how much is a person's
production worth? A thing, any thing, is worth whatever someone is willing to
pay for it. If someone wanted to pay a high salary to someone to sweep floors,
then janitors would be rich. This is why it's called the job market. Not because
people are shopping for jobs. It's the
other way around. Employers are shopping
for employees and deciding their value -- or at least how much they are willing
to pay for them.

When making purchases consumers
look for "value for money" meaning that they want the best and most
at as little cost as possible. The seller is looking for the maximum return on
his investment. If he can buy widgets cheap and sell them at ten times what he
paid for them, then he's one happy camper.

In the job market you might think
that the employer is analogous to the seller, but you would be wrong. He’s the
consumer. We sell our production
(freedom) and we want a maximum return on our investment. This means getting as much money as possible
costing as little freedom as possible -- high pay, low hours, and little work
is the ideal.

The employer wants value for
money. His ideal is paying as little as possible for another person's
production and squeezing as much labour as possible from the employees, or as they say in retail
"if you've got time to lean;
you've got time to clean". If an employee is late or lazy then the
employer is not getting his money’s worth.
If the employee is costing the employer a certain amount of money but is
not making the employer enough money to cover the wages, then the employer is not
getting his money’s worth.

One of the comparisons made
between the American North and South during the period before and after the
Civil War was that while the South owned slaves, free production, the owner had
to pay for the slaves upkeep in food, shelter, clothing, and, if the master was
kind, medical care. Whereas in the North, factory workers were underpaid and
still had to pay for their own upkeep. The argument was that it was sometimes
better to be a slave in the South than a factory worker in the North.

The saying goes that we all have
a boss. From the lowly minimum wage
employee, to their boss, to the corporate executives, they all have bosses;
they all want to get paid; and they all want to keep getting paid and will do
whatever they were hired to do to ensure that. This universal need to sell our production for money and the employee/employer relationship is "the system" and it will continue to exist as long as people need food, shelter, clothing, and entertainment.

In this eternal dynamic of employee
and employer there is a third outside party with no metaphysical connection
with the other two. The worker needs a boss and a boss needs a worker, but
neither needs government.

Government however needs both.
Labour (the people) who empower government with votes, support, and even through
their apathy and acceptance. Management empowers government with money. This is provided either directly through
taxes, donations, bribes, or favours, or indirectly through the wages paid to
employees who then pay a portion of these wages to government through taxation.

So the people give government
social power and companies give it monetary power. In exchange the government
grants favours writ in legislation and enforced with police, courts, prisons,
and military. Whoever controls the government with its monopoly on force
controls the production of a nation.

This is the foundation of
revolution -- all revolutions. The
people fight for freedom -- the ownership of their production and a maximum
return on their invested freedom. When they don't get it they say they are being
exploited, which is just a fancy way of saying used. When they fight business it’s
for higher wages and more benefits. When they fight government they are resisting
the force of government control their lives. Here's an interesting side-thought, if a person trades one months production (freedom) for £1,000 and this person is then taxed £1,000 per year, then he has spent one month of the years as a slave to government. This is just an example. It is estimated that the average person works three to four months for government. Why do they do it? Is it a sense of civic duty or because men with guns will arrest them and put them in jail if they don't?

Joining the Revolution

Ultimately, everyone wants to
control this exclusive power of force wielded by government. Of the recent trailers for Assassin’s Creed,
you may have noticed the absence of Unity in the above showcase.Strange that the trailer for the game set
during the French Revolution is the least revolutionary.Instead there is Lord’s cover of the Tears
For Fears song, “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”.This is true.Everyone does want to rule the world, perhaps not directly but everyone
has an opinion of how the world should be.They are more than happy to tell you what should or should not be a law.
They often forget that laws are backed by the force of government, so when you
want something to be illegal, ask yourself if you are happy for government to
use force to make someone act as you choose.

Business leaders and politicians
are not some alien species, unless you believe David Icke. They are people with
families, children, hopes, dreams, and feelings. The difference is that they
have power and others do not and people with power work their will in the world. Since time
immemorial people have talked about what they would do or what should be done
to make their society better -- whatever their idea of "better" might
be. The difference between them and the people with power is that the powerful
can actually do something about it. In the words of Larens Prins in Black Flag,
"You live in the world but you cannot make it move.” The powerful can and
do.

Someone with monetary power can
simply buy what they need to change the world, anything from manpower, to media
coverage, to politicians. Revolutionaries have social power, the power of the
people -- the power of numbers. But this
is as unstable a foundation as monetary power is stable.

Universities are traditionally
starting points for revolution. This is not because of the ideas that students
encounter, though that does play a part. Students are not fully independent
from their parents and have no dependents. This affords them the luxury of
being revolutionaries. It's hard to join the cause if you have to maintain your
job and provide for a family. At best the revolution is a past time or volunteer
work on the side. You show up for the
rally and then get the kids their dinner. Even the most dedicated volunteers
have to sustain their lifestyle.

Another problem with people power
is that there are as many individual purposes as there are individuals and
these purposes can change on a whim. Today the public is on your side but
tomorrow they have moved on to something else and you stand alone on the
barricade.

Since the source of revolutionary
power is social power, then a political rally or protest is a display of that
power. It is the equivalent of brandishing a gun at the powers that be. But
what if the powers are not threatened? What if they know that all they have to
do is wait it out and the threat will peacefully disperse and return to feed
the kids? This is what happened with the Iraq War protests, possibly the
largest mass protest the world has even seen and it accomplished nothing.

A more violent form a protest
involves looting. This is hardly the grand ideological movement that revolutionaries
want. It is as simple as an event creating opportunities for people to steal
and later justifying it as protest. This
gets media attention, but still nothing changes. It is not revolution.

The problem in converting the
revolutionary trope from fiction to real life is the consideration of money. For the hero to
act he must have the means to act, the power to act, and most of the time this
means money. In real life our range of action is limited by the amount of money
at our disposal, but this is never a problem suffered by fictional characters
unless it pertains to the plot. Even in sitcoms supposedly poor characters can
afford to leave their jobs and fly across America for another character’s
wedding at a moment's notice and no matter menial their job they all have nice homes.

Like most heroes and primary characters,
the Assassins have money at their disposal for the sole purpose of advancing
the plot. Imagine if Connor said, "Sorry Achilles, I can make the assassination of the evil Templar because I have work till six". The Assassins primary income seems to derive from treasure chests sitting in
plain sight that no one ever thinks to break open, real estate development, and
international trade. Either way, the Assassins are not poor. Ezio was a noble. Connor
had access to Achilles resources. Aveline
was a wealthy merchant. Edward started off poor but ended rich due to his
lucrative pirating exploits.

So where does this leave our real
world Assassins lacking in monetary power or people power? I think it is all about
attitude – an individual’s orientation to reality. This orientation is determined by our beliefs
and values. I would define myself as
having a revolutionary attitude because I do not like my actions dictated by
laws or policies made-up by people that I do not know and do not know me. I agree with Douglas Bader who wrote, “Rules
are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men”. With that in mind, I do not take kindly to
fools who follow and enforce the rules concocted by other fools who attained
positions of power over me by following other rules.

What makes the way of the
Assassin revolutionary is the realization that everything is permitted so your
rules only have as much power over me as you are able to enforce. This means I will follow your rules for only
one of two reasons. Either I agree with
them or I am not willing to risk the consequences of disobedience. I will not smoke in a public place because I
do not wish to annoy people and not because it’s against the law. I will smoke in a deserted public place. I will pay taxes because I do not want to go
to jail, but will not if I could safely avoid it.

There have always been schemers
and planners. Those people with an
overwhelming sense of how things should be and the arrogance to believe they
are exclusively right and that this gives them the right to force their will on
others. If these people have a small
amount of power it’s the asshole in the office.
If these people have a lot of power it’s the asshole in the corporate
office, government, or the community action group. What’s new is their ability to control and monitor
you and this begs the question of what you can or will do in response.

Assassin’s Creed is for the
outlaws, the outcasts, the hashishin, the revolutionaries. With one snikt of the hidden blade the
powerful fall to the powerless. In some
ways it’s a revenge fantasy vicariously played out. The dark side of Assassin’s Creed is this message that of all the forms of power material power may be the most reliable
and constant, social power may be dramatic yet fickle, but the one that trumps
them all is physical power. Money will
not save you from the hidden blade and the crowd becomes your disadvantage.

Although the Assassin’s Creed
trailers sell revolution, in the Rise and Defy trailers the assassins stand
apart only making an appearance at the end.
He is not their leader. He is not
their organiser. He is not part of their
revolution. However, it is implied that he
is willing to take action as needed. This
is played out in the games themselves where the revolution serves only as a
backdrop. So perhaps the real message is
not one of revolution but an understanding that events are currents that pull
us along and all that we can control is how we choose respond to them. Do we
obey or do we rise and defy?

2 comments:

Well theorized. When those with power seek to enact their image of betterment, I thought of the schemers who attempt to reverse the momentum through subversion. Those who simply want to carry out their will upon themselves, despite the situation. Rather than think outside the box, think as if it didn't exist. Do you have an opinion on this group in this discussion?

Thank you for your theory and your thoughts about the image of revolution on the franchise. Please keep writting about the Assassin's Creed universe and your interpretation of it, it is a good use of your freedom.

About This Collection

In April 2011, after playing Assassin's Creed Brotherhood for the umpteenth time, I wrote down some of the ideas that came to mind while playing the game. These became an article on my Evil Thoughts of a Decadent Mind page. This proved to be my most popular piece accounting for over half the hits on the site at about 54,000 views. Naturally when looking for an economically viable project the topic of Assassin's Creed seemed the most potentially successful. I wrote about five chapters and got stuck.

The Creed itself -- Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted -- proved to be, as Frederick Nietzsche described it, "labyrinthine". Rather than writing a critical analysis of the game series I found myself contemplating the Creed and its ramifications. In this I found another book topic, but I still wanted to write whatever came to mind about the ideas expressed in the game series. I decided that the best way to do this was to create a dedicated Assassin's Creed page. Especially since , with a new game being released each year, the book could never be truly finished.

As a video game, Assassin's Creed is judged primarily on its game play, but you won't find that here. No hints, no guides, and no discussion of combat mechanics. Another aspect of Assassin's Creed is story. Some folks love jumping off buildings but there is also the world or mythology of Assassin's Creed -- meaning the vast lore of the series. That plays a part, but you won't find the life story of Ezio Auditore or Edward Kenway here.

What you will find is another less talked about feature of games of this nature. There is story and stories have characters, settings, and plots, but also themes. The themes presented in narrative fiction dramatize the philosophy the creator is conveying, either with or without conscious intent.

You can call it the deeper or hidden meanings, but the truth is that it is just what I see in the games. They are my interpretations, which can be completely different from those laid out by the creative team in the offices of Ubisoft during late night meetings. Since "nothing is true" I accept on the outset that I could be wrong. That is for you to decide.

My focus here is real world philosophy applicable to real world living inspired by the themes found in the lore of Assassin's Creed. Hence the title -- Assassin's Creed: Inspirations.